


No Blinding Light

by Lasafara



Series: Waiting For The Hint Of A Spark [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU-magic, M/M, Revenant!Jimmy, ghost!cas, necromancer!dean, no one stays dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 07:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16487948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasafara/pseuds/Lasafara
Summary: When Dean's best friend Castiel James Novak (Jimmy to his friends, Wizard Novak to the world, but Cas to Dean, and only Dean) dies in a freak accident, Dean realizes he'll do anything to bring his friend back. There are things that have been unsaid for too long, and damned if Dean is going to let Cas go without getting to say them.But when the resurrection goes wrong, suddenly Dean has more on his plate than he'd expected.





	No Blinding Light

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a standalone story, but it also sets me up for a series of hopefully humorous one-shots about the adventures of Dean The Necromancer, Cas The Sort-of Ghost, and Jimmy The Not-Quite-Dead. I don't expect to poke at it a lot, but I have some ideas. If you don't like WIPs, you should still be able to appreciate this story, as it does wrap up nicely without a cliffhanger.
> 
> Special thanks to Unforth, for encouraging me to write this!

This couldn’t be happening. Dean couldn’t believe it was really happening. His best friend was _the most powerful wizard in the known world_. If there was one constant in Dean’s life, it was Cas. 

James Castiel Novak, or Jimmy to his friends, had been Dean’s best friend since their school days. Their nursery school had quietly separated out those that were magically inclined from the ones who had little or no talent, and then assigned lessons based on how strong that talent was. Dean had been the only one placed in the same category as Novak. The other boy had introduced himself with his full name, and then told Dean and the teacher to call him Jimmy. Dean, a stubborn ass even as a child, had simply shaken his head and called him ‘Cas’ instead. Cas had grudgingly accepted it from Dean, but adamantly refused to acknowledge anyone else who attempted it.

To most of the world, he was Wizard Novak, expert magician and researcher of the expanse. To his family and friends, of which he had few enough, he was Jimmy. To Dean, he was Cas, Dean’s best friend and maybe someday more.

And Cas had cheated death more times than Dean could count.

Until today.

*****

It was supposed to be a simple research project. Dean, as a lead Occult Thaumaturge Specializing In Quietus (‘necromancer’ had too many negative connotations, the university felt, although Dean privately felt it was more honest. Also, easier to spell), often worked with Cas on his analysis. Cas worked mostly on dimensional transition and function, and Dean’s field overlapped Cas’s to a certain extent. It was one of the reasons Dean had decided to specialize in it. There were… Other reasons, of course, but Dean didn’t think too hard about those. There were certain things that it turned out humanity couldn’t change.

But things had changed when a Something had crossed over into their laboratory. The Something had been confused and angry, and Cas… Cas had always had a soft heart. He’d tried to communicate with the Something. Tried to reason with it. Tried to…

The Something had seemed to calm for a moment, long enough for Cas to get close. And then the Something had lashed out.

Dean hadn’t even had a chance to react. His brother, Sam, a Diabolist and Augur of the highest order, had been the one to leap forward and banish the Something. Dean had simply stepped forward, dropping to his knees beside his best friend’s body while Sam shouted the necessary incantations. If it had been just Cas and Dean in the laboratory that day, Dean vaguely supposed he would have died beside his friend. He wished he had.

*****

Rumors flew over the next two days. Most wizards had some sort of backup plan for such matters, as common in the magical world as a last will and testament was in the non-magical world. It was rare that a wizard or witch died before they reached triple digits. Dean, Sam, and Cas were no exception, and so speculation was flying as to how Cas would return this time.

Only Dean knew that Cas’s protections had failed. Dean was a _necromancer_ , an Occult Thaumaturge Specializing In Quietus. He was trained to see the life threads of a person, to know the precise moment they’d been cut, and to tell the difference between someone who still had magical ties enabling them to come back versus someone who did not. It was an integral part of his job, after all; one did not want to attempt to resurrect someone who would be coming back anyway. At best, it was a waste of energy. At worst, it caused things to go horribly horribly wrong, and usually resulted in a mess and a visit from the Reapers.

It didn’t matter how much everyone assured Dean that Cas would be back.

Dean knew differently. 

The Something had somehow stripped Cas of all his protections, all his backup options, of everything, with one moment. Cas wouldn’t be back.

At least, not without some help.

*****

Dean was a _necromancer_. Fuck the university’s attempt to sanitize his profession. On the dawn of the third day, Dean knew what he had to do.

Spirits only stayed with their bodies for 72 hours. Once that time period had passed, the bond between spirit and body was too weak, and any resurrection Dean attempted would fail. At best, Dean would end up with a zombie in the shape of his best friend, a soulless body only capable of following orders and finishing its mission, before decaying to dust. At worst… Well, botched resurrections rarely ended well for either summoner or summoned.

So today was the last day Dean could do anything, and he absolutely couldn’t stand by and leave his… his best friend in the lurch. 

No one thought it was strange when Dean asked to deal with Wizard Novak alone. No one thought to guard the body from _Dean_. No one noticed that the body, after Dean had wrapped it, was just a little… _wrong_. Just _not quite_ human. No one paid attention to a stray teleportation spell that originated from inside the room Dean prepared Wizard Novak, and residential areas like the one Dean lived in were thick with such spells. 

*****

When Dean arrived home, Cas’s body was neatly laid out on his bed. 

“I’m going to fix this,” he said, running his fingers along Cas’s cheek. “I’ll make this right, buddy.”

The spell was easy. Dean pulled the coffee table into his room and inscribed it with the sigils necessary. Sam would be unhappy later, but Dean didn’t particularly care. He wasn’t going to just dump Cas onto the floor. 

After that, it was just a matter of pulling together the ingredients. Dean kept most of them on-hand, as part of his job as the Occult Thaumaturge Specializing In Quietus. Research often required such things. As a necromancer, however, Dean had rarely if ever used them. The university preferred to avoid things like skeleton armies, which Dean felt was just _completely unfair_. If he had the ability to reanimate the dead to do his bidding, why shouldn’t he use it?

Once everything was together, all he needed to do was add a few drops of his own blood. Life replicated, but it needed a starting point. The blood of the living worked best, blood of the summoner even better, and blood of one who loved the dead the best option. Dean’s blood, as both the summoner and one who… well, his blood would be particularly potent.

Unfortunately, Dean’s research and skill had never accounted for a thing like the Something, and he had not seen, _could not_ have seen the effects of the Something’s attack on Cas. 

*****

Dean was absolutely ecstatic when the body of the Wizard Novak breathed in sharply and began to cough.

“Cas?” Dean asked, kneeling by the coffee table holding his friend’s body. 

“Uh… No,” the body said, looking at him. “The name’s Jimmy, everyone knows that. Or Wizard Novak, if you want to be precise.”

Dean blinked. “...I’ve… But I’ve been calling you Cas since grade school…”

The body-- _Jimmy_ \-- stared at him.

“Do I know you?”

*****

Jimmy wasn’t quite a zombie. Generally, zombies were not capable of much beyond following orders. If forced to carry on beyond the mission their summoner established on their creation, they turned from mild obedient pack mules to ravenous beasts. Jimmy didn’t seem to need orders, nor was he drooling and demanding blood of the living, so. Clearly, not a zombie. He was more of a revenant, but missing some major chunks of personality. 

He didn’t have Cas’s sense of humor, for one. Dean was probably the only one who ever really understood and appreciated Cas’s humor. Cas was such a straight-faced sort of guy that most people didn’t even realize when he’d made a joke. His humor tended towards the kind of sarcasm that didn’t sound like sarcasm, unless someone knew him well enough to pick out the sparkle in his eyes. 

Jimmy was awkward, suspicious, and fairly reserved. He was definitely Wizard Novak, though. Dean could see that both in the way he used his magic and in his mannerisms and attitude. He wasn’t… He wasn’t _Dean’s Cas_ , but he was Wizard Novak, and he was clearly his family’s Jimmy. 

Dean was nearly positive that no one else would notice the piece of Cas, the part of Cas that Dean was becoming fairly sure only he knew, that was missing. And, after all, his goal had been that his friend come back. Jimmy, for all his suspicions, was grateful to Dean for what he’d done, and once he’d rejoined his family, was quite happy to welcome Dean into the fold as his friend. 

It would be selfish of Dean, then, to wish there could have been more. Cas--no, Jimmy. Jimmy had never been more than Dean’s best friend. Jimmy had never _tried_ to be more than Dean’s best friend, and in Dean’s heart he knew that this was for the best. 

And besides, a certain level of memory loss was normal in resurrections. Sure, Sam was fairly convinced that something wasn’t quite right, but Dean had shut it down. He didn’t want to talk about it. Even personality changes weren’t uncommon, though generally it meant that the summoner had done something wrong in the casting. But Dean could accept that. Honestly, if his punishment for not preventing Cas’s death, for not bringing him back correctly, was that Cas had largely forgotten what they’d meant to each other, well… That was fair.

*****

It wasn’t until a week after Jimmy came back that Dean started seeing things. Little things, movement out of the corner of his eyes, a person standing at the end of a hallway but then gone when he moved closer. He began to hear voices, too. Nothing he could pin down, just whispers in the breeze. If he weren’t an Occult Thaumaturge Specializing In Quietus, Dean probably would have brushed it off as grief or guilt. But he knew the signs of a haunting better than most people did. He didn’t _just_ deal with dead bodies after all.

One of the biggest reasons that necromancy (sorry, The Study Of The Occult And Magical Quietus) was not completely banned, or even not allowed to be taught in universities, was because encounters with the recently dead were sometimes an unfortunate side effect of magic. Coupled with the fact that every wizard knew at least a little death magic, if only to stave off their own, and the field became a necessity. It was not necessarily something that was looked highly upon, of course; people generally tended to look down on the position and the people who performed it. Dean tended to get checked extra carefully at airports and the like, just to be sure that any items he was carrying didn’t contain the dead or undead. 

Not that he’d ever be dumb enough to carry a dead body with him, even a well-concealed one. That shit went USPS; it was so much easier.

No, Dean’s job, really, was more about teaching students what _not_ to do, and how to fix things if they did it anyway. He also tended to be the one called in for situations where the dearly departed had not… _quite_ departed. 

Usually it was pets. Kids’ pets, specifically. Kids often had more raw talent than they had training or discipline, and unfortunately that sometimes resulted in a child forcing life back into their beloved friend. Everyone was always happy to see him when they had Fido running around dropping pieces off. Rotting flesh was just not very hygienic. 

Less frequently, humans didn’t pass on like they were supposed to. Sometimes it was a magical accident. Sometimes it was simply that the person had not been ready to go. Once in a while, Dean was able to lead the person back to their body, heal their wounds, and bring them back. More often, it was a matter of helping the person find closure, and then send them on their way. 

So as a matter of course, Dean needed to know the difference between a haunting, and simple grief. More than once he’d been called out to deal with a ghost, only to find that their loved one was long gone, with only the memories and regrets haunting them. His job changed, then, became more about offering comfort to the living. Dean didn’t think he necessarily did so well at those jobs, but he hadn’t had any complaints, so he supposed it didn’t matter.

Having his own haunting was new, though. The worst part was that he couldn’t quite figure out who was haunting him. Ghosts generally needed to be newly dead, at least for the kind of haunting Dean was having. Poltergeists were old ghosts, generally angry and violent, while spectors, also old, tended to haunt specific places, going through the motions of their former lives over and over again until they were as much a part of the scenery as the wall or floor. In Dean’s case, it was definitely his person being haunted, not a place, and besides, it was a new haunting. Dean was always careful to take precautions to not allow things to follow him home, and no one Dean cared for had died recently.

Except for Cas-- _Jimmy_. But that was different. And he was back now anyway.

So Dean pulled together his supplies. It was time to figure out what was going on.

*****

Whatever Dean had been expecting to see materialize in the middle of his summoning circle, this wasn’t it. 

“But you’re… I… This isn’t _possible_ ,” Dean stammered, blinking at the apparition in front of him.

Cas just cocked his head to the side. “Hello Dean.”

Dean stared. The apparition even moved like Cas.

“But _how_?” Dean asked. 

Cas shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. I woke up like this after the accident in the laboratory. It was fairly obvious that I wasn’t among the living anymore, but I couldn’t seem to materialize enough to communicate.”

“So you’ve just been… hanging out for like the last two weeks?”

“Something like that,” Cas said. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for a while now.”

“Shit. _Dammit_. Wait.” Dean looked up sharply. “If you’re here, what’s out there walking around in your body?”

By all rights, if Cas were still a ghost, if his soul were still separate from his body, then the body shouldn’t be able to move independently. Research on the soul versus the body was difficult, and one of the great debates of modern times. How was the soul stored? Was it moral or ethical to research the recently dead? Did souls grow and develop like bodies did, and what were the ethics of researching the souls of infants and children? 

But one thing remained universally accepted, and that was that a body without a soul did not move under its own power, let alone speak, disagree with its summoner, and then go back to the job it held before death and begin work again. This couldn’t be _possible_.

“As near as I’ve been able to tell in my limited state, nothing. There is nothing in there at all but the remnants of myself,” Cas said. “It’s as though the creature from the other side of the rift permanently severed my my connection to my body.”

“Why didn’t my resurrection spell work?” Dean felt a spike of anxiety run through him. He was so sure he hadn’t messed that up, but what if he had somehow?

“I am not certain, but I have a theory,” Cas replied. “The creature essentially forced my soul from my body, but not in a way anything in our dimension would. Instead of simply killing me, which you could have fixed normally, it severed my soul farther away than the connection point of soul and body.”

Dean nodded slowly. “So what you’re saying is that you were only mostly dead.”

Cas quirked his lips just slightly. “And mostly dead is still slightly alive.”

Swallowing hard, Dean grinned, ignoring the tears gathering in his eyes. “Fuck, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you, buddy.”

The smile Cas gave him was small and pained. “I’ve been watching you, Dean. I tried to enter my body during the resurrection, and when that didn’t work, I latched onto you. I knew you’d be able to see me eventually.”

“...so you… You saw…?”

“Everything.”

“Ah.” Dean looked down. “Got it.”

Cas moved to the edge of his circle, as close to Dean as he could get. He couldn’t reach beyond the edges, but he placed his fingers at the barrier and pressed forward. “Dean, look at me.”

It took a moment, but Dean finally looked up.

“Dean, While I did not realize your feelings for me were so strong, I am not upset. I… I have a confession to make myself.” Cas took a deep breath and continued. “I, too, have feelings for you that are more intense than friendship. I feared to act on them because I felt that I was not good enough for you. I could not fathom that you might feel the same way. So please, please do not feel embarrassed by anything I saw. I am… glad that I am not alone in my feelings.”

Dean just stared for a long moment, and then chuckled wetly. “Of course we figure this out when I can’t fucking touch you…”

Cas smiled softly. “Well, there _are_ ways to fix that. There are more than a few ways for someone of your skills to recreate a body.”

“They’re not really legal…” Dean hedged.

“Of course not,” Cas replied, glancing at him. “I would never dream of asking you to do anything illegal, Dean. The fact that the two of us possess the skills necessary to successfully cover up any such discretion and discourage any further examination of it is, of course, irrelevant.”

Dean couldn’t help his snort. “All right, all right. I’ve got to convince Jimmy to come along, though. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier if we had your original body as a blueprint, and if he’s willing to donate some hair and blood…”

“It is very strange to hear you refer to my body as a separate person from myself,” Cas said.

“Believe me,” Dean said, “this whole situation is fucking weird.”

*****

Convincing Jimmy to come over was easier than Dean had expected. Dean hadn’t exactly been avoiding Jimmy, but he hadn’t sought him out, either. Hanging out with his best friend when his best friend seemed to be unable to remember their friendship was too painful. Jimmy had no trouble remembering who Dean was, but he treated Dean the same as he treated Sam or Charlie, and Dean couldn’t deal with that.

Dean had assumed that meant that Jimmy would be reluctant to come over, but Jimmy leapt at the opportunity.

“I’ve missed you, Dean,” Jimmy said when he showed up at Dean’s doorstop. Dean was somewhat startled when Jimmy leaned forward and pulled him into a hug. Cas had never been particularly physical, even with Dean, beyond standing far closer than culturally acceptable. 

“Yeah, buddy. Missed you too,” Dean said. He couldn’t help pulling Jimmy into the hug and clinging a little. It was hard to let go. Jimmy was the right shape to be Cas, and Dean wanted to pretend just a little. But Jimmy wasn’t Cas, and so Dean backed away reluctantly.

Jimmy sighed. “Dean, I uh… I need to apologize.”

“What for?” 

“When you brought me back… I was disoriented. And I hurt your feelings,” Jimmy said, gripping Dean by the upper arms. “Things have felt… off, since then. With everything, but especially with you. And I need… I was so happy when you invited me over today. I needed to apologize, but also I just. Well. I need my best friend back.”

Dean swallowed. “Uh. Well. I think I can explain why everything feels off…”

*****

Watching Jimmy and Cas stare at each other was more than a little disconcerting. Cas stood inside the summoning spell, while Jimmy paced in front of it.

“So what, I’m just… a _piece_ of him?” Jimmy asked, running his fingers through his hair in frustration as he paced.

“Something like that,” Dean replied.

“And you want to… what? Put him back in here? What happens to _me_ then?” Jimmy asked, his voice breaking.

“While that is a potential course of action,” Cas said, cutting in, “it would take… quite some time to study what the creature from beyond the rift did and how to counteract it. There is no guarantee that my substance would remain stable during that time. Besides… You are your own separate person, at this point. It would be… immoral for me to possess you.”

Jimmy took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Okay so I still get to be me. What _is_ the plan, then?”

“We’ll make a new body for Cas, using yours as a template,” Dean said. “Some hair, some blood, some alchemy, and we’ll be able to make an empty vessel that Cas can snug his way into, no problem.”

“What about the rest of the world? How will we explain that there are now two Wizard Novaks?” Jimmy asked.

“Ah…” Dean wasn’t quite sure on that one. He just couldn’t leave Cas hanging.

“A lot will depend on how much magical talent I retain. In the best case scenario, where I retain the majority of my magical ability, we work out a system of interchanges,” Cas replied. “Worst case, where I have none, we introduce me as your long-lost talentless twin brother. The second seems most likely, as Dean has told me you seem to have our magical abilities. But no one has successfully done research on how magic is connected to a person, and we have to be willing to prepare for any situation. If it is anything beyond those two options, we will deal with it then.”

Jimmy nodded slowly. Then he turned to Dean. “Once this is done, I would like to talk to you, Dean. I… have something to say.”

Dean swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure what that might be, but he probably deserved it. Fucking up a resurrection as a Quietus Specialist was bad enough, but ending up with two versions of his best friend? Both of which were terrified of no longer existing? That was basically unforgivable.

“Right. We ready to do this thing then?” Dean would deal with that later. For now, he had a best friend to save.

*****

Fortunately, building a body from its component parts was a fairly simple process. It’d be different if they were trying to pull a soul back from beyond the veil, but since Cas was here already and knew exactly how to shift his consciousness into another body, it wasn’t a difficult process.

It was, of course, expressly forbidden. If Dean were following the rules, he’d have assisted Cas with moving on. But the laws were put in place so that novices didn’t shove loved ones into inadequate bodies and produce horrifying situations that people like Dean would have to fix. A body that a soul wasn’t properly attached to would have a myriad of problems, including chronic gangrene as the body rotted away. It was painful and terrifying, and often caused the soul to go mad.

Besides, if Dean had been following the rules, Cas would be whole, and dead. Dean was simply fixing the mess he’d created initially. 

Watching Cas stare at his own hands almost made Dean smile, although the fact that Cas was ignoring the robe Dean was attempting to shove at him made everything a bit distracting.

“Cas! Clothing! Now!”

Jimmy chuckled, and Cas looked up, absently shrugging on the robe Dean held out. They looked like twins, identical in nearly every way. They stared each other down, making Dean somewhat uncomfortable. Finally, simultaneously, Cas and Jimmy reached for each other, first touching palms gently. When nothing happened, Dean watched as they stepped closer and then together turned to Dean, holding hands like the twins in _The Shining_.

“Dean,” both men said together, and Dean shuddered. His mind went to some truly erotic places, before cycling back around to despair over the likelihood of blame and abandonment.

“So Cas, you have your magic?” Dean asked instead.

“Yes,” both Cas and Jimmy replied.

“Can you quit with the speaking in unison shit? It’s creepy,” Dean snapped without thinking.

Cas grinned, while Jimmy just shook his head. 

“We’re gonna need to study this, Dean,” Cas said. “I don’t seem to have any reduction in my abilities, which is not how the theories work at all. By all rights, either Jimmy or I should have ended up with a significant, noticeable difference in our magical strength, potentially both of us. To _not_ means that all the magical theories we currently have about the way things work are at least partially, if not completely wrong, and need to be revamped. It’s extremely exciting!”

Jimmy nodded, still holding Cas’s hand. “It’s interesting, as well, that the feeling of ‘missing’ has disappeared now. I was concerned that I would have it forever, unless Cas and I became a single entity again, but it seems as though that doesn’t need to be the case. It’s a relief.”

Cas nodded, glancing at Jimmy with a smile.

“Well, that’s great guys, but Cas, there’s no way we can announce this to the world. I did some seriously fucked up shit to make this happen,” Dean said.

“What if we explained it as a side effect of proximity to the rift and the attack by the creature from the other side?” Cas asked. “We can work on some other things that can be done to study that, and work on revamping the magical theories as well. We’d need to, in order to effectively split a magical creature to prove our theories anyway.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You’re really set on this, aren’t you, Cas?”

Jimmy shrugged. “Well, he’s right. Having a better understanding of how magic works is important, and knowing how we connect to it makes it more likely that someday we can have better, more effective cures for magical ailments.”

With a snort, Dean just chuckled. Some things just didn’t change. “All right. As long as we can avoid putting me in handcuffs, I guess.”

“Only the good kind, if you ask nicely,” Jimmy and Cas said simultaneously, with identical leers. Dean swallowed hard, his face flushing bright red.

“Uh, on that note…” Dean began.

“We need to talk to you, Dean,” the other men said together. Without dropping their hands from each other, they stepped forward, moving until they were just inches from pressing themselves up against Dean. 

Dean struggled to breathe.”Yeah?”

“It seems that now that we both have bodies,” Jimmy began.

“And are fully in possession of our powers again,” Cas continued.

“That we have an undetermined level of mind-reading ability,” Jimmy said with a wink. Dean nearly swallowed his tongue. 

“You have what now?” Dean squeaked. 

“Only with each other,” Cas said, glancing sideways at Jimmy. Jimmy just grinned unrepentantly.

“Anyway, it seems we share a certain… interest,” Jimmy said.

Dean took a step back, only to have Cas wave his free hand and freeze him in place.

“I will not allow you to run from this conversation, Dean,” Cas said. “It is important. We will not touch you without your consent, but we need to talk.”

“Touch?” Dean heard his voice crack like he was a teenager again, and he cringed. 

“We’d like to touch you, Dean,” Jimmy said. 

“But you… you didn’t remember me when I brought you back,” Dean said, focusing on Jimmy. It wasn’t that he was less distracting than Cas, but he knew where Cas stood on this. They’d already talked about it, sort of.

“I...” Jimmy sighed, looking down. “I was a bit overwhelmed, honestly. I couldn’t remember what had happened, and you were there using a name that didn’t… quite sound right.”

Dean watched as Cas gave his… twin? His twin’s hand a squeeze and Jimmy shot him a grateful look. 

“And I wasn’t really totally with it when I came back. And then suddenly you were avoiding me, keeping me at a distance, and I had no idea how to bridge that gap,” Jimmy finished.

“But you… You were the one keeping me at a distance,” Dean said. “I just wanted to be… whatever we are, whatever we _were_ , again.”

Cas rolled his eyes, his whole body moving with it. “Dean. Jimmy came back disoriented and confused, but he is not any longer. Neither am I. And we find we both have extraordinarily strong feelings for you.”

“And each other,” Jimmy said, glancing at Cas.

“And each other,” Cas agreed.

“But aren’t you just the same person?” Dean asked. “Isn’t that… weird?”

“Yes, we are one person in two bodies. Which is probably why we wish to be as close to each other as we do. But that does not negate our feelings, especially our feelings for you,” Cas said.

Jimmy leaned closer, a hair’s breadth from touching Dean. “Dean. Can we touch you?”

Dean couldn’t think of any good reason to say no, and every reason to say yes.

So he did.

*****

The magical community was in an uproar for months after the Wizards Novak made their announcement. A wizard with the strength Novak had was a once in a generation thing. For the wizard to accidentally split himself _and_ for it to result in two wizards with magical strength equal to what Wizard Novak had before was unheard of. It made everyone sit up and take notice. 

It did eventually come out, at least vaguely, what Dean had done to bring the Wizards Novak back to life. The university gave him a mild reprimand, but given the unusual circumstances, his expertise, and more importantly, the effect the data they’d gained through it had on the community as a whole and the university’s prestige, it was no more than a smack on the wrist. The university president ended up assisting in smoothing everything over, as well, which meant that Dean was able to keep his license and his job. It helped that Wizard Novak had been so influential before the accident, because the Wizards Novak could leverage that. Dean had _saved_ them, after all.

Because of the unusual circumstances, Cas and Jimmy were forced to rework all of their paperwork, now that they were two people. The government wasn’t quite sure exactly how to classify them, but it decided that “distant cousins” worked. Mostly because both men made it clear that they were going to live together, and no government official wanted to deal with the idea of siblings being ‘together’ in that manner.

Fortunately, being legally distantly related enough to be in a relationship with each other worked in their favor, because within six months they’d proposed to Dean (together, of course). Dean had cried, and then laughed when they’d handed him each a ring. Cas’s was set with an ametrine stone and Jimmy’s with rhodonite. Dean said yes, of course, and firmly refuses to admit there were any tears. Jimmy and Cas’s rings to each other were set with apatite. Dean eventually gave Cas a ring set with aquamarine, and Jimmy a ring set with azurite. Their ceremony was small, with only family, but the public celebration of the marriage between the Wizards Novak and Occult Thaumaturge Specializing In Quietus Dean Winchester was the party of the decade. 

Dean was just happy to have finally found his best friend again. To be able to touch, to hold his best friend again, no matter what. 

Sam spent the next five years rolling his eyes. He’d been telling Dean to ask Cas out since they were teenagers.

Figured Dean would wait until there were _two of them_. Lucky bastard.

**Author's Note:**

> Stones mentioned and meanings:  
> \- **Rhodonite:** Represents the relationship of oneself with its own body in order to listen to it and love it despite its limitations. Calm security in any activity. Reduces anxiety and increases coherence.  
>  _Given by Jimmy to Dean to represent Jimmy as the ‘body’ of Wizard Novak, wanting to connect with Dean_  
>  \- **Ametrine:** Helps psychic opening and development, astral projection, working with spirit guides, meditation. Stabilizes the balance between spirituality and daily life.  
>  _Given by Cas to Dean to represent Cas as the ‘spirit’ of Wizard Novak, wanting to connect with Dean_  
>  \- **Apatite:** Unconditional love and acceptance of others. Recommended in the relationship with difficult people. Stimulates the development of clairvoyance and perception of other dimensions.  
>  _Given by Cas and Jimmy to each other, representing their love for each other and acknowledging the rocky times ahead being in a relationship with effectively themselves._  
>  \- **Aquamarine:** Represents the expression of interior truths through the power of the spoken word. Help self-expression and increase psychic power. The “courage stone” helps against fears, phobias and stress. Helps to establish happy marriages. Good for the respiratory system.  
>  _Given by Dean to Cas, acknowledging that Cas was the first Dean actually spoke to and in the hope that they could continue communicating well_  
>  \- **Azurite:** Cleans the mind and soul. Reinforces concentration, mental coordination and memory. Shifts subconscious thoughts to the conscious mind. Good for decision making.  
>  _Given by Dean to Jimmy, offering a greater connection to Cas, and to the memories Jimmy has of Dean before the accident._


End file.
